


date one, get one 50% off

by tostitos



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, Established Relationship, Humor, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Idiots in Love, M/M, Polyamory, Rating May Change, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Spring Break, aka the tostitos brand, but not before i sail it to greatness okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22527268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tostitos/pseuds/tostitos
Summary: "We're not lost, Doyoung, really," Johnny says, but there's just enough uncertainty in his eyes that he can't be trusted. "I'm taking the scenic route."Or,the one where Dongyoung adores Mark, Johnny kind of can’t stand Dongyoung, and Mark is just really looking forward to a great spring break vacation with his best boys.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Mark Lee, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 26
Kudos: 178





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello i am very disappointed by the lack of doyoung/mark and have decided to take matters into my own hands. but honestly i’ve been wanting to write this since it became apparent that the chicago jcc wasn’t opening anybody’s eyes. /bitter that i, a writer, actually has to write
> 
> Anyway, this was originally going to be a one shot but i think i’m just gonna see where it takes me

Johnny stops the car at a stop sign at the intersection of Random Street #1 and Random Street #2 in Nowhere Town of Where The Fuck Are We State and Dongyoung stares blankly out the front window as he sucks on a ring pop he found in a convenience store close to campus back when they were still amongst human civilization. Mark is laid out across the backseat, drooling all over his arm, but he's just as useful like that as he'd be if he was actually awake.

The clock on the dashboard reads 10:37 AM - _just_ too early for Dongyoung to want to strangle someone and yet Johnny's fake grin in his peripherals is taking him there.

Sucking in a breath through his nose, Dongyoung slowly pulls the candy out of his mouth with a deliberate wet smack.

"John."

"We're not lost."

Dongyoung turns to glance at the boy in the driver's seat with a raised eyebrow. He waves at the scenery around them, ring pop glistening where it's hooked around his index finger. "We're going to Toronto but it looks like we're in the middle of Ghost Town, Kentucky."

Johnny grins. "To be fair, outside of cities, most of the States looks like this."

Dongyoung runs his tongue over his lips. He didn't waste away his childhood at hagwons studying English so he could enter an American university so he talk shit to his friends back home just to die in some dusty, backroads town.

He slips the ring pop in and out of his mouth and reaches for his pocket with his other hand. "I don't even know why you got off the highway. I'm opening Google Maps."

"No!" Johnny reaches over the center console and snatches the phone out of Dongyoung's hand. "We're not lost, Doyoung, really," he says, but there's just enough uncertainty in his eyes that he can't be trusted. "I'm taking the scenic route."

Dongyoung looks at his captive phone and then up and Johnny's big, round, believe-me eyes. Slipping the ring pop into his mouth, he flips the lock on Johnny's Mazda and pushes open the door to the car, mumbling around the candy as he slides out. "Goodbye, John. I'll have better luck hitchhiking to Canada."

There are a number of things that led to this exact moment of Dongyoung furiously shaking an unconscious Mark Lee while Johnny tries to placate him - Dongyoung joining the Korean American Student Alliance in his freshman year, Dongyoung applying to the University of Illinois at Chicago instead of staying in Korea, Dongyoung studying English instead of Chinese, Dongyoung being born an asshole with a superiority complex who would then decide to do all of the former things listed - but the most pivotal moment happened two months ago.

The Dongyoung of two months ago made his first mistake when he didn't lock the door to the bathroom before getting in the shower one Saturday morning in January.

He turned off the water once he was finished and pulled back the shower curtain to see Mark sitting on the edge of the sink. Gasping, Dongyoung tried to take a step back reflexively and his shoulder knocked into the wall behind him.

"Ow, fuck." He reached back to rub at his sore bone and narrowed his eyes at the boy sitting on the edge of his sink and staring back like a cockroach that just had a light shined on it. "Mark, why are you in here?"

When he entered the shower, Mark was definitely not in the apartment, let alone in the bathroom with him.

"I...um, I wanted to ask you something." Ears redder than a boiled lobster, Mark scratched the back of his neck.

"And it couldn't have waited until I was out of the shower?"

Mark chuckled awkwardly. "Well, you know what they say about the element of surprise."

Dongyoung's towel was on the rack just outside the shower and he finally reached out for it. "Sorry, no, I don't speak English," he said in Korean as he dried himself off.

"Hyung."

Ignoring him, Dongyoung wrapped the towel around his neck and stepped out of the shower. He took to getting dressed in the bathroom, just because it's usually too cold to walk back to his bedroom with damp skin. Taking his lounge pants, he slipped his legs into them and pulled them up over his ass.

Mark kicked his feet against the cabinet under the sink. "Okay, maybe I wanted to see you naked."

Glancing at the other boy out of the corner of his eye, Dongyoung snorted. "I believed you more when you said you needed to ask me something." Mark huffed and the older of the two laughed. "I'm also going to pretend like I don't know Johnny made you come in here and ask what you want."

The accusation made the red in Mark's ears flood into his cheeks. "That's not..." He shook his head. "Whatever. Do you want to go somewhere with me for spring break?"

"With you?" Dongyoung repeated, reaching for his thin, long sleeved shirt to pull over his head. "As in, just the two of us?"

Mark gave a boxy, non-smile. "The two of us plus Johnny?"

"Pass."

"Hyung, please," whined Mark. "We're going to take a road trip."

Sucking in a long breath, Dongyoung held it for suspense before exhaling out, "Double pass." He grabbed his lotion out of the cabinet above the toilet.

"Hyung."

Squeezing past Mark, Dongyoung pushed open the door to the bathroom, stepped out into the hallway, and then closed the boy inside again.

The door quickly opened again and soon a hand closed around Dongyoung wrist.

With a light tug, Mark turned him around. "Doyoung, just... I'd like it to just be the two of us, but then we'd have to just stay here considering neither of us can drive and the highway bus is trash. So, I asked Johnny if he'd come." He pressed the pad of his thumb against the inside of Dongyoung's wrist and rubbed small circles in his skin. "It's only a couple hours in the car together and then we can ditch him."

It sounded like an excuse Johnny would draft for Mark to say, but Mark also looked so genuinely hopeful with his still red cheeks and soft pout, that Dongyoung couldn't help but sigh.

He had always been weak against cute boys and it would be his demise.

"...Okay."

A wide grin broke out on Mark's face. "Okay?"

Dongyoung nodded, at the time choosing to believe he wasn't making a huge mistake. "Yes, I'll go."

At the very least, in the moment, the bear hug Mark gave him was a nice consolation that everything would be okay.

The Dongyoung of two months ago made his second mistake when he watched Johnny highlight lines on a paper map in their living room and didn't immediately change his mind about the trip.

"What are you doing?" he asked from the doorway to the kitchen, opened family size bag of sour cream and onion Lay's chips tucked against his chest with one arm.

Johnny hummed. "Nothing."

Dongyoung pinched two chips out of the bag and shoved them into his mouth. "Doesn't look like nothing," he said around a full mouth. Looked a lot like bullshit, if he was to be completely honest.

Johnny glanced up shortly. "Can I have some?"

"No."

Sucking his teeth, Johnny went back to studying the map. "I think it'll take us eight or so hours to get to Toronto."

Yeah, that was what their old friend Google said when Dongyoung looked it up. He didn't know what the point of the map on the floor was, though.

Or rather, he knew Johnny was going to do some dumb shit like lead them from a book of maps, but he tried to tell himself that maybe Johnny just wanted to paste it on the wall or something, like a momento - that there was no way Johnny could be so idiotic to attempt an early 2000s, cheesy montage filled teen movie cross country road trip like that.

(Maybe Dongyoung's problem is that he never gives their stupidity any validity until it's too late.)

"Mark, wake up. We're hitchhiking."

"Doyoung, get back in the car. People are going to look."

Dongyoung narrowly misses bumping his head on the roof of the car as he stands up. Johnny has exited the car too, ready to chase him down, and Dongyoung glares at him over the top of the car. "What _people_ , John?" He turns around. There's farms lining the road on either side of them, their fields still bare in the early spring cold.

He ducks down into the car again. "Mark." He shakes the boy furiously with the hand not wearing his ring pop.

Groaning as he joins the living again, Mark slaps a hand over his face. "What's going on?"

"Johnny's big head got us lost."

Johnny pokes his head into the car. "I'm just trying to find gas."

"So we're lost and running out of gas, got it." Mark rubs his eyes with the heel of his palm. Worming his body around until he's sitting up, he pats around his waist with his eyes still squeezed shut. "Let's just look up a gas station." He pulls out his cell phone to Johnny's dismay. "We're still in the States, right?"

Dongyoung snorts. "Who knows."

Mark finally opens his eyes at that and squints through tired, contact-less eyes out the rear window. "Oh, so we're _lost_ lost."

"The point of this trip is to make it without technology, guys." Johnny sighs, flopping into the driver's seat.

"You." Dongyoung jabs a finger in Johnny's direction. "Shut up. Lying about looking for gas as if we didn't pass a gas station when you first got off the highway."

"Maybe we didn't need gas then."

"Yeah, and we need it _now_ because we're _lost_." Dongyoung rolls his eyes. "I know basic math, Johnny. I can put two and two together."

Mark looks up from his phone in surprise. "You know that idiom?"

"I had a dictionary back home," Dongyoung explains offhandly.

Humming a noise of no meaning, Mark looks at his phone again as he swipes his thumb around the screen. "So, I just typed in our hotel cause I don't know what else to do, and it says the highway is, like, forty minutes away."

Frowning, Dongyoung glances at Johnny who frowns back.

"Scenic route?" Johnny says as if that means anything when he's been driving aimlessly for almost an hour.

"And there's a McDonald's."

Dongyoung slips his ring pop in his mouth and claps his hands. "Great. Let's go. Mark, get in the front since you have the directions."

"Yessir."

He moves out of the way enough for Mark to slide out of the car once the boy finds his glasses on the floor, holding himself against the open door. Mark bumps into him anyway, but instead of apologizing, he hooks a finger in the ring of Dongyoung's diamond ring shaped lollipop, pulls it out of the older boy's mouth, and slips it into his own with a summery giggle.

Fucking cute boys and their games.

Mouth left gaping fish open, Dongyoung stares at the boy as he swivels around to get to the passenger side door. Popping it open, Mark takes the candy out of his mouth to grin wide.

"Thanks."

"You're not welcome?"

Once they're both seated and buckled in, Johnny tosses Dongyoung's phone into the backseat. "Can you two not be gross?"

Dongyoung picks up his phone and slumps into the seat as he loads up Twitter. "Shut up and drive."

Apparently the ice cream machines at McDonald's still don't work even in the middle of nowhere - granted, there's no point in fixing something that's hardly being used - but it's fine because it's not like Dongyoung actually wants ice cream when it's four degrees Celsius outside. It's just interesting how certain things around the States are constants: like the uneven bob the mother of four boys in the booth across the fast food place has; or how outside the city, every car has an ugly, fading bumper sticker for their owner's conservative views.

The older woman behind the counter slides across the extra cups of honey mustard Dongyoung asked for and he scoops them up in his hand with a mumbled thanks. Instead of returning to the table, he stops by the service table in the opposite direction and knocks his hip into Mark's.

The younger boy glances at him over the top of his glasses, chuckling. "Hi."

"When we get back on the road, we should both sit in the back and cuddle and make Johnny uncomfortable," Dongyoung says as he digs out a handful of napkins to steal and keep in his bag for emergencies.

Mark laughs harder, replacing the cap to his coffee after adding some cream. "How long are you going to be mad he got us lost?"

"Until either of us die, probably."

Dongyoung's been known to hold a grudge over the smallest of things. He still hasn't forgiven Moon Taeil from first grade for taking the lead role of Prince Charming in their meaningless play and could probably pick him out from a lineup today, thirteen years later, even though Moon Taeil most likely has no recollection of ever knowing him.

Mark squeezes the back of Dongyoung's neck. He trails a hand down his spine and leaves it a light ghost on the small of Dongyoung's waist. "I think maybe you're just looking for an excuse to cuddle."

Dongyoung sniffs and brushes the hand off his back. He might not mind the touch, but he's not trying to be a victim of unsolicited white Christian morals in a McDonald's in the middle of America's country asshole. "Maybe if you were Jaehyun, I'd be looking for an excuse to cuddle," he says, slipping away from Mark and turning back toward the table.

Following like the sweetest puppy dog, Mark slings an arm around his shoulder. It's a little uncomfortable for them both, but Mark isnt going to retreat and Dongyoung isn't going to make him.

"Don't lie, hyung. Jaehyun is stiff."

Dongyoung pets Mark's hand that's lying against his collarbone. "Those are called muscles, sweetheart."

"You guys are so slow," comments Johnny when they reach their booth table in the corner. He drags a limp fry through the ketchup squeezed in a glob on his open big mac wrapper, other hand propped up on its elbow and cushioning his chin.

Sliding onto the seat across from him, Dongyoung kicks at his leg under the table. "Don't talk to me about being slow. We could have been at the border by now if it wasn't for you."

Mark takes the spot beside Johnny, sliding his coffee onto the table. He steals a fry from the eldest boy as he laughs. "Guys, can we not fight at the lunch table? This is a place of peace."

Dongyoung looks over at Johnny who returns the stare while sticking out his tongue. Mumbling in Korean about having to spend his vacation with a biggest fails compilation video come to life, Dongyoung opens his box of fifteen nuggets.

"I can understand you." Johnny picks up another fry.

"That's why I said it."

"Does anyone want my pickles?"

Dongyoung points a finger at Johnny just as Johnny slides over his wrapper to Mark who slaps the warm pickles next to his burger.

"You know, if you don't eat your vegetables, you won't grow any taller." Johnny slides his burger back in front of him and reaches for his large cola.

Dunking a nugget in honey mustard, Dongyoung snorts.

Mark takes a bite out of his chicken filet sandwich. Over a full mouth, he says: "Thanks for the advice, dad."

"You're welcome."

A bit of honey mustard gets on Dongyoung's finger and he leaves his half-bitten nugget in the sauce as he brings his finger to his mouth to suck it off. "This isn't going to work out if you refer to each other as dad and son."

"I've heard people find it hot," Mark says, as if he really knows anything about that.

"Taeyong isn't a person; he's a waste of oxygen filling a human shell."

"I'll tell him you said that," Johnny says.

It's sounds like it's supposed to be a threat, but that just turns it into a joke. A single tear beads at the corner of Dongyoung's right eye and he flicks a finger at it with a breathless laugh and a shake of his head.

Mark chuckles too, just because he's always been a little amused by Dongyoung and Taeyong's thinly veiled dislike for each other. He thinks it's a 'not recognizing this guy is more similar to you than you think and there's a lot of potential for him to become your best friend' sort of thing.

It's not.

"I could tell him myself if you really want me-- _excuse you_?"

Dongyoung stares at Mark who returns the look with that stupid, sweet grin of his as he pops one of Dongyoung's nuggets into his mouth.

Mark covers his chewing mouth with a hand as he giggles. "Sorry, thought you were more distracted than that." He sinks down in the faded seat and then a moment later Dongyoung feels legs hook and tangle with his.

"You're literally eating a chicken sandwich."

"It's not the same as a good nuggie though."

It's stupid, really, how much Dongyoung wants to kiss this loser.

"You look like you don't know if you want to break his glasses or make out." Johnny snorts, lips wrapped around the straw of his soda.

"It's kind of like one of those optical illusions where both options are correct depending on which way you're looking." Dongyoung resolves to lightly shove his heel into one of Mark's calves.

Mark mumbles out a soft 'ow' but he's still wearing that grin.

"And I'm back to third wheeling." Johnny sighs and takes a long, dramatic sip of his cola before sliding the cup back onto the table with a dull clap.

"The only wheeling you're good at since you can't drive."

Johnny gives Dongyoung a look. A second later his gaze shifts to something between Dongyoung and his eyes widen.

Brows furrowing, Dongyoung turns around to see what he's looking at.

There's the sound of something moving on the table and then Mark choking out 'dude, oh my--' around a wheeze.

Dongyoung turns around to Mark slapping Johnny, whose cheeks are oddly full, in the arm. He glances down at the white, paper box in front of him to see it askew and missing a few more nuggets.

He looks back up with a glare. "Really?"

Cheeks puffed up like a blowfish, Johnny tries to pucker his lips at Dongyoung. They're grease-slicked and there's a bit of nugget at the corner of his mouth.

"You're disgusting."

Johnny shrugs and powers through chewing the mass in his mouth.

Dongyoung looks at Mark as he drags the box with his remaining nuggets toward himself and out of reach. "I thought I liked you enough to spend time with him," he throws his head at Johnny, "but I was wrong. We should have taken the Greyhound."

All Mark does is laugh.

"As if your ass was gonna sit on a twelve hour bus ride." Johnny scoffs.

"Pretty sure I'd actually make it to Canada and in less time than we will now."

"If you want to make that bet, I can take you back to Chicago."

Dongyoung rolls his eyes. "Cute threat. Might have meant something if you actually knew where the fuck we are right now, but you don't."

"Then walk!"

"I was going to!"

Mark finally reaches for his coffee and lifts it up to his face, his glasses fogging from the heat.

By the time they're back on the road, with a full gas tank and Johnny's phone in Google Maps navigation mode, it's already close to noon. Mark doesn't sit in the back with Dongyoung, choosing to sit shotgun and take control of the aux cord. Dongyoung slouches in his seat, presses his cheek against the seat belt strap, and listens to the organized chaos of alternative R&B playing through the speakers.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his social media accounts that he's already checked a million times. Yoonoh has added a short video of him doing absolutely nothing but looking beautiful to his Instagram story and Dongyoung has half a mind of call him out for using the app for its genuine thirst-trapping purpose — Dongyoung's own Instagram feed is full of aesthetic shots and more selfies of Johnny that the other boy took and uploaded behind Dongyoung's back than of Dongyoung himself — but he lets Yoonoh live his best life in peace.

There isn't much else that's changed since the last time he checked the app fifteen minutes before and it's the same for Twitter, so he drops the phone between his legs and glances out of the window as Mark begins to sing along to Tinashe.

"Doe? ...Hey, Doe?"

Dongyoung blinks his eyes open at a touch to his thigh, unsure of when he closed them and drifted off. Johnny is looking back over the seat at him, a small smile playing at his lips.

Dongyoung frowns and glances up at the rear view mirror and sees Mark staring straight ahead. "I thought Mark couldn't drive," he says.

A part of him is wondering if he should sound the alarm bells that they're going to crash, but Frank Ocean is serenading through the speakers and he can only lift a hand to rub at his eyes.

Mark glances at him through the mirror. "I know how to drive, I just don't have a license," he says. "But these are open roads, so it's not like anyone's around."

That sounds like an excuse someone who doesn't actually know how to drive gives before they sverve off the road or get pulled over by some cop hiding behind a conveniently large bush, but Dongyoung lets it go.

What's he going to do? Demand Mark pull over?

"We hit a rest stop like an hour ago and we got you something to eat, if you're hungry," says Johnny.

"You didn't wake me up?" Dongyoung finds his phone and lights up the screen to check the time. His eyes widen when he sees he's been asleep for almost two hours.

"Didn't want to hear your voice." Johnny grins and tosses a plastic bag between the seats.

Dongyoung scowls as he picks up the bag that fell into his lap and peeks inside it. There's a sandwich, a can of Arizona half and half, and a bag of peanut M&Ms. "Fuck you," he says, hardly sparing a glance up as he takes out the chocolate candy.

"Fuck _you_ ," Johnny hisses back. "You've been bothering me all day."

Mark laughs. "Don't make me pull this car over, boys."

It's common knowledge that Dongyoung can argue about the simplest of non-issues forever, but he settles down - not because Mark wants him to, but because he doesn't want to give Johnny any more of his energy. Tearing open the M&Ms, Dongyoung shakes a few out into his palm and pops them into his mouth.

"Thank you, Doe."

When Dongyoung glances up at the rear view mirror, Mark is giving him that sweet, boy next door smile.

"Whipped," Johnny mocks, hiding it poorly behind a fake cough.

Dongyoung pops another M&M into his mouth and takes out his phone. ‘ _i will beat your ass’_ , he sends to the older man in a text.

Johnny snorts. ‘ _wow im so scared. how will i defend myself against dongyoung kim and the leftover mcd's french fries he calls arms 😪😴_ ’, he replies.

Dongyoung throws an M&M at Johnny's head. It hits him perfectly in the back of his ear and Johnny lifts a hand to touch the spot as he turns around to look at Dongyoung with narrowed eyes.

"Bite me," Dongyoung mouths wordlessly.

The car suddenly rolls to a stop on the side of the road. Both Dongyoung and Johnny turn their attention to Mark.

"We weren't doing anything," says Johnny.

Mark rolls his eyes. "I have peripheral vision, I could see you making faces at him," he says. "But that's not why I stopped. We're getting on the highway that'll take us straight to the border so we need to switch."

"Oh, right."

Getting past the border isn't so bad. They ask the usual questions - how long will they be in Canada, where they're going to stay, what they're going to do, how they know each other - and glance over their passports before letting them go. Then, it's just the same dragging ride but on Canadian land.

"Aw, man, I wish we could go to Niagara," Mark says suddenly.

Dongyoung sips at his half and half, tapping his fingers on the side of the can in time with the discordant melody of an FKA Twigs' song. "What's stopping us?"

Mark looks back between the seats and reaches out a hand, wiggling his fingers. "It's on the other side of Ontario. We'd have to drive past Toronto," he says. "Can I have a drink?"

Pretending to be annoyed, Dongyoung sighs and passes over the can. He unashamedly stares at the way Mark's adam's apple bobs as he swallows.

"We can always drive out there another day," comments Johnny. "Not like we have anything specific planned."

"That's true." Mark hands Dongyoung the can again with a smile and a tiny air kiss that makes Dongyoung's heart clench. He turns back around and starts fiddling with his phone, searching for a different song to play. "And I think it'd be best if we rest a little bit. We can just explore the area around our hotel later on today."

"I'm always down to rest." Dongyoung says.

Johnny snorts and even though he doesn't exactly know what he means by that, Dongyoung still reaches over the seat to pull his hair.

The man behind the wheel swats at Dongyoung's hand like it's a mosquito. "How many rooms did we book again?"

"One." Dongyoung gets a hit to the top of Johnny's head in before he unbuckles his seat belt and slides across to be behind Mark.

"Jesus." Johnny sighs.

Mark, true to form, laughs. "If anyone should be sighing right now, it's me. I can only imagine what tonight is going to be like with the two of you."

"A great time," replies Johnny, all the sarcasm he can muster in his voice.

Dongyoung gives a small hum. "Oh, absolutely fantastic."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we continue to spread the wholesomeness that is the domark agenda. please take a pamphlet before you leave
> 
> (unproofread)

"What if there was some mistake and there's, like, only one bed or something?"

Dongyoung, untangling the cord of his earphones, pauses and glances at Mark through his eyelashes. It was Mark who booked their accommodations for this trip, claiming he knew best as the resident Canadian, and, sure, Dongyoung and Johnny checked out pictures of the hotel before he made the reservation, but they didn't confirm the finer details past accepting what Mark told them.

"Wouldn't that be funny?" Mark continues, holding out a hand for the earphones as if Dongyoung stopped because he's having trouble with the loop they're in and not because he's suddenly worried about the words coming out of Mark's mouth.

"No," Johnny says blankly, walking ahead of them.

They're walking up to the entrance of a Tim Hortons in the area close to their hotel, just because it's the only Canadian coffee chain Dongyoung and Johnny know and Johnny has been complaining about caffeine withdrawal for the last hour.

"Mark, I like you and all," Dongyoung starts, passing the earphones to the younger man, "but if we walk into our hotel room and there's only one bed--"

"I didn't do it, hyung, I'm just saying. Like, what if?" Mark giggles, rolling his eyes.

"I think there are better things to imagine," Dongyoung says, hooking a hand around Mark's elbow to pull him toward the coffee shop, "like, what if we kissed in front of the Toronto sign or, what if we stole John's underwear and hid them in the mini fridge in our room."

Johnny, lingering by the entrance, hears him as they approach and lets out a dry, unamused laugh while pushing the door open.

Sliding his finger through the last loose knot in Dongyoung's earphone cord and untangling it, Mark glances up and looks around the coffee shop. "Do you want to sit down for a while? I can find a table?" he asks, a hint of a smile still on his face at Dongyoung and Johnny's endless back and forth.

Dongyoung looks to Johnny for an answer.

"Sure, why not?" Johnny shrugs.

Before he leaves the two of them in line, Mark passes the earphones back to Dongyoung who plugs them into his phone and wraps them around the device before shoving it back into his pocket.

Turning to look up at the menu board for the first time, Dongyoung scans over it. They both regard it quietly for a moment before Dongyoung sniffs and opens his mouth.

"It's a little plain, isn't it?" He says it in Korean, not wanting to be found out criticizing the place.

Johnny snorts, replying the same. "It's a cheap coffee shop."

"Am I elitist for wanting a little variation?"

Maybe it's because his references for the ideal coffee shop are Hollys or Ediya or Starbucks, but he's used to having more than what looks like four coffee options and the usual selection between chamomile, earl grey, and English breakfast for tea.

"I think having a properly brewed espresso is a lot more elitist than wanting some fruit-infused tea," Johnny says. "Though, like I said, this is just a cheap coffee shop." Then, with a small nudge of his elbow into Dongyoung's arm, he approaches the counter.

He orders for the three of them, getting an Americano for himself, honey lemon tea for Dongyoung, and hot chocolate for Mark. He pays for them too, shrugging Dongyoung off when he reaches out three dollars to cover his drink.

"Do you think we should have gotten donuts or something?" asks Dongyoung once they've moved to the side of the counter where the pick-up station is located.

Johnny, leaning up against the counter, taps his fingers along the surface top. "We're right by the hotel. I figured after this we'd check in and see what the delivery options are like," he says. "I'm hungry for, like, real food, you know."

Humming, Dongyoung nods his head.

"Or maybe you don't, since I'm positive you gain sustenance from hanging all over Mark."

Dongyoung snorts and gives a small kick to Johnny's foot. "What? You have a problem with me giving attention to him? Did you forget we're kind of _a thing_?"

"No, you're just-"

"Or are you jealous?"

Johnny rolls his eyes.

A teasing grin starts to stretch across Dongyoung's face but he reins it in, running his tongue over his lips instead. Shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, he rocks back on his heels and turns his head to look over the entire shop. He spies Mark hunched over a table against the wall, legs spread wide and in the way of the aisle as he does something with his phone.

Johnny sighs. "Doyoung, shut up."

Feeling the smile return, Dongyoung bites into his bottom lip and takes a long breath through his nose. "I don't recall saying anything," he says plainly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the other man.

"You don't have to say anything out loud. I _know_ you," Johnny replies with exasperation.

Dongyoung lifts his eyebrows, finally letting a small smile show. "What? You said you're not jealous, so you're not jealous."

Like he's carrying the weight of Dongyoung's ego on his eyelids, Johnny narrows his eyes at him. "I don't like you."

Dongyoung laughs a little bit. "The feeling is mutual."

"A medium Americano, medium tea, and a medium hot chocolate?" A barista calls from right beside them and they turn to grab their drinks, Johnny picking up Mark's as well.

When they join the other boy at the table, Johnny passes the hot chocolate to Mark as he slips into the seat across from him.

"I don't know what you see in this guy," he says.

Mark looks up from his phone, open to Twitter, and glances between Johnny and Dongyoung, who takes a seat next to him. "Anyway, what'd you get me?" He asks, putting his phone down to reach for the cup placed in front of him.

"Hot chocolate," answers Johnny.

"Nice."

Dongyoung slips a hand under Mark's open coat to pinch his side. "That was the time where you're supposed to gush about all of the things you like about me."

"He didn't because there are none."

Dongyoung kicks Johnny under the table.

Johnny kicks back.

Before they can start having a foot fight under the table, Mark slides an arm around Dongyoung's shoulder and leans into him. "No donuts?" he asks.

Knowing he's supposed to take the distraction bait, Dongyoung pushes some of his weight onto Mark and doesn't kick Johnny back like he wants to. "That's what I said."

Johnny only shakes his head. 

After they finish their drinks and drive the last five minutes to their hotel, Mark runs in to check them in while Dongyoung and Johnny unload their luggage from the car.

Johnny pops the trunk of his car and Dongyoung, standing at the boot waiting, lifts up the rear hood and reveals all of their bags. He lifts out his own dark purple, hard case suitcase first with a grunt and drops it heavily onto the asphalt next to him.

“You really should hit the gym or something, Doe. That’s kind of pathetic,” says Johnny as he joins Dongyoung behind the car.

Dongyoung lets the words roll off his shoulders, just because they’ve been going at it all day and he _is_ capable of not responding to every little joke thrown at him. Instead, he reaches next for the soft, lime green suitcase that belongs to Mark and lifts it out of the car. It’s tiny in comparison to his own, but Mark swore up and down that he’s well packed for the week when Dongyoung asked him about the size before they left campus.

Johnny squeezes in close to Dongyoung, their arms brushing, and grabs the two huge duffle bags he usually uses to hold his sports equipment for the crew team. He slings one over his shoulder and props the other up on top of Dongyoung’s suitcase, telling Dongyoung to just take Mark’s.

Dongyoung raises an eyebrow. “You do know that I’m capable of wheeling my own stuff, right?” He curls a hand around the handle of Mark’s suitcase nonetheless.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Johnny sighs. “Can you at least accept it without mouthing off at me?”

Sucking in a breath, Dongyoung pretends to think about it but before he can make a quip back, Johnny continues, pausing in the middle of shutting the rear hood.

“You’ve been hellbent on pushing my buttons all day, Doyoung. I’d maybe reconsider.”

Dongyoung glances in the direction of the hotel and spots Mark walking out of the automatic doors. He runs a tongue over his lips, turns up his nose, and pulls on Mark’s suitcase to make it fall on its front wheels so he can drag it along. “Why should I? What are you going to do about it, John?”

He walks ahead of Johnny, head held high and shoulders squared in collected poise. His thoughts are running a mile a minute, as is his heart beating a little off rhythm, because he could hear the warning in Johnny’s voice loud and clear. And it’s what he’s been pushing for this entire time. He knows what he wants and he's going to get it.

He hears Johnny following behind him after the slam of the trunk and the beep of the car doors being locked, the wheels of his suitcase adding to the gravelly sound rushing through Dongyoung’s ears along with the rush of his blood. Shaking his head, Dongyoung blows out a breath between his lips and continues walking toward Mark.

The youngest man reaches out for his suitcase as soon as Dongyoung approaches but Dongyoung lightly slaps his hand away from the handle.

“Ouch?” Mark chuckles, rubbing at the back of his hand.

Dongyoung rolls his eyes, fond. “You’re a baby.”

“Yeah, yours.”

Dongyoung honestly hates how his heart does all kinds of gymnastics for this stupid boy.

Behind them, Johnny snorts. “That was kind of lame.”

Mark makes a face over his shoulder. “Doe liked it.”

Dongyoung doesn’t say anything to that, not wanting to admit that he does, in fact, like extremely cheesy lines like that even though they can probably see it in the warmth of his cheeks. Instead, he walks a little faster. “What floor is our room on?”

Thankfully, when they tap the keycard against the lock to Room #415 and push open the stiff door to the room they’ll be staying in for the next week, they can see two beds in the mirror hung on the wall just inside the entryway. Dongyoung and Johnny both let out sighs of relief under their breath, sharing a glance and a small grin when they realize. Sharing a bed between the three of them for six days just wouldn’t have worked out. Not when Mark hogs blankets and Johnny likes his space (read: takes up most of the bed for himself).

Empty handed, Mark walks into the room first. He kicks off his shoes and runs to toss himself onto the bed closest to the window. Dongyoung wheels up the suitcase he’s been dragging along over to the bed that he assumes is the one Mark has claimed for the duration of their stay. Parking it by one of the chairs at a small round vanity desk in the room, Dongyoung then sits on the edge of the bed by Mark’s feet. He takes off his own shoes as well, leaving them by the end of the bed with the mental note to move them closer to the door later.

He watches Johnny leave his suitcase and his own duffle bags in the front of the room, out of the way.

“It’s not bad,” Johnny says, poking his head into the bathroom.

Mark shuffles on the bed, his legs disappearing from beside Dongyoung who flinches when, a moment later, arms are wrapped around his waist and Mark hooks his chin over his shoulder.

“I told you to trust me,” he says. “I wouldn’t put us up in a shitty place. You both would nag me to hell and back.”

Johnny leaves the bathroom and walks into the room, taking a seat on the bed opposite them. “I guess this is going to be our sleeping arrangement for the week?”

Dongyoung shrugs. He doesn’t really care where he sleeps; he’ll be inconvenienced either way.

Humming out a non-answer of his own, Mark tilts his head and presses his nose beneath Dongyoung’s jaw. He brushes his lips along his neck in a soft kiss.

It’s ticklish and Dongyoung squirms. He glances at Johnny, unsurprised to see the older man watching them. Letting a grin stretch his lips, Dongyoung raises an eyebrow.

With a roll of his eyes, Johnny slides off his bed and walks over to the vanity to pick up the little card that probably has the wifi password on it.

“Stop,” Dongyoung says, a little giggle in his voice, when Mark pokes a series of kisses along the curve of his jaw, up to behind his ear.

Mark locks his hands resting on Dongyoung’s stomach and squeezes. “No,” he mumbles, mouth pressed against Dongyoung’s warming skin. "I'm comfy."

"You're bothering me."

Mark snorts and the puff of air against the damp spot his mouth has left on Dongyoung’s skin makes the older man squirm. " _No_ ," he drawls. Sucking in a long breath, he presses his mouth hard against Dongyoung’s neck and blows a raspberry that makes Dongyoung yelp and wiggle out of his hold.

" _Now_ , I'm bothering you."

Wiping at his neck, Dongyoung turns around to give Mark a faux glare. "You've been hanging out with Donghyuck too much."

Mark grins, wide and toothy. He holds out his arms for Dongyoung who looks at him with pretend distaste. "C'mon. You've been cranky all day, hyung. It's nap time."

Dongyoung snorts. "You were an infant, like, yesterday. It's _your_ nap time."

"Can both of you go to sleep already," Johnny cuts in.

"You should join us, hyung,” Mark says, glancing over Dongyoung’s shoulder with that grin of limitless starlight.

Crawling into Mark’s arms and dropping his weight so the younger boy falls back onto the bed with an audible wheeze, Dongyoung scoffs. “He’s in need of a nap the most, really.”

“Jesus, Doe. Take it easy.” Mark turns his head to cough.

Chuckling, Dongyoung rubs the heel of his palm in circles in the center of Mark’s chest. “Sorry.”

Mark accepts the apology and wraps his arms around the small of Dongyoung’s back, tugging him a little further up his body and shoving a leg between Dongyoung’s. He puts a hand on Dongyoung’s head and the older boy gets the idea to press his cheek against Mark’s collarbone.

“This could be us, hyung, but you’re playing.” Mark laughs, trailing absentminded fingers along Dongyoung’s nape.

From his spot, Dongyoung can’t see anything past his nose except the swell of Mark’s chest as he breathes, but he knows Johnny is exasperated from the sound of his sigh.

“I’m going to look through the list of places to eat around here so we can figure out what we’re going to do for dinner,” Johnny responds.

The fingers on his nape travel up into his hair and Dongyoung closes his eyes with a soft exhale at the light tease at his hair. He shifts on top of Mark in an attempt to make them both more comfortable, sure the younger man doesn’t appreciate having nearly all of Dongyoung’s weight pressing down on him despite him not saying anything. Rolling so he’s only lying on Mark’s right side, he rethreads their legs and shoves his hands beneath his shoulders.

“Seo Youngho, shut up and get over here,” Dongyoung hisses in Korean, not bothering to open his eyes to attempt to glance at the older man. “Dinner can wait. If you were that hungry, you could have gotten some of those dry donuts in Tom Hortons.”

“I literally told you I wanted something real to eat,” Johnny says at the same time Mark giggles out, “Doe, it’s _Tim_ Hortons.”

“I’ll give you something real to eat,” mumbles Dongyoung, sarcastically.

Mark’s chest practically vibrates with his laughter and that, plus the steady sound of his heartbeat, is the main reason Dongyoung ever agrees to laying on his bony torso like this.

“Hyung, I don’t think that’s what he’s hungry for.”

Dongyoung snorts. “Oh, my sweet, summer boy. You’d be surprised.”

"Dongyoung, I do _not_ like you," Johnny says.

Like always, it goes right in one of Dongyoung's ears and straight out of the other.

"Yeah, okay."

The thing is:

Dongyoung met Johnny in his freshman year, during a karaoke event with the Korean American Student Alliance, after Yoonoh finally managed to drag the Chicago native to one of them despite his reasoning that he doesn't 'know a single word of Korean that isn't _hello_ '. Johnny did, in fact, know Korean - if the way he suddenly developed a violent cough when Dongyoung leaned over while Taeyong was singing Britney Spears and told Yoonoh something along the lines of 'I would climb your friend like King Kong climbed the Empire State Building' with confidence he only had _because_ he thought Johnny didn't understand was any indication.

They started dating after a couple months of small meet-ups to get coffee or lunch in between classes and a blatant suggestive text or two or twenty. And they were good together. Those dying teenage magazines always say stuff about how your significant other should be like your best friend and Johnny was just that. He was the person Dongyoung could go to no matter how he was feeling and they didn’t need to do anything except exist in the same room together for Dongyoung to be content. It was so good that Dongyoung couldn’t do anything with Yoonoh without the other boy reminding him of how he got them together, even if all he did was sit there and look pretty as Dongyoung openly thirsted.

They moved in together the summer before Dongyoung’s second — Johnny’s third — year of university. And it was great until it was a little annoying being together almost all of the time because they _had_ to be.

They broke up and got back together enough times that none of the friends believe them when they say they’re not dating anymore. Especially, when they both refused to find someone new during those times apart. It became the Dongyoung and Johnny way of life.

And then Mark transferred in from some university in Canada that Dongyoung never bothered to remember the name of, exploiting his dual Canadian-American citizenship. He was a friend of Taeyong’s who showed up out of the blue with those big, sparkling eyes and that laugh that could probably cure any disease and, honestly, Dongyoung didn’t stand a chance.

He and Johnny were still off then.

At some point, they were on again.

And off.

There really wasn’t a point in differentiating.

Dongyoung wakes up to Mark’s knee dangerously close to his crotch and his arm falling asleep under the weight of the younger boy. Perhaps a little too roughly, Dongyoung pushes him away with his free hand. Mark’s breathing doesn’t even falter as he rolls over onto his stomach, half of his body hanging off the bed.

Rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes, Dongyoung sits up and looks around the room. The sun hasn’t yet begun to set, which means he wasn’t asleep for long. Sighing, he drops his hands into his lap and looks over at the other side of the room.

Lying on his stomach with his chin held up in his palm, Johnny scrolls through something on his Mac.

“What are you doing?” Dongyoung asks. He scoots down the bed until he can swing his legs over the edge. His feet hit the shoes he left sitting there and he blinks down at them blankly, still a little disoriented, before bending over to pick them up.

“Nothing,” Johnny mumbles back.

Humming, Dongyoung stands up to walk his shoes over to the door. He tosses them onto the floor, nudging them with his toes so they line up nicely against the wall. He ducks into the bathroom next to tug at the messy strands of his hair in the mirror.

When he comes out, Johnny hasn’t moved a single centimeter.

“You didn’t join us.” Instead of returning to the bed occupied by Mark’s corpse, Dongyoung crawls onto the second bed and flops onto his stomach next to Johnny. He watches the way Johnny runs his tongue over his lips, looks at the reflection of the laptop screen in his brown eyes.

“I’m not tired.”

“Sure, you are. You drove nearly the whole way here.” Rolling onto his side, Dongyoung, too, props up an elbow to hold up his head as he regards Johnny thoughtfully. Lifting up his free hand, he pokes a finger at a strand of the older boy’s lengthening hair, pushing it out of the way of his eyes.

Johnny glances at him then, a hint of a smile on his face. “I can wait until it’s an appropriate time to go to sleep like most fully functioning adults.” He looks back at his Mac. “I also can’t get good pics of you sleeping with your mouth wide open if I join in.”

“I do _not_ sleep with my mouth open.”

Johnny hums a teasing sound and flicks his fingers quickly over the trackpad. A smile spreads wide and smug and ugly (read: arguably kinda hot) across his face and he nods meaningfully at the screen.

Turning onto his stomach again, Dongyoung looks at the laptop and is faced with a picture of himself from that same day, head tipped back against Mark’s shoulder and...mouth open. “Oh my god, delete that.” Knowing Johnny would never, Dongyoung reaches out to delete himself.

Johnny swings an arm around Dongyoung and catches his wrist before his hand can get close to the keyboard. He all but imposes his weight onto the younger man, pinning him down so that he can’t do anything. “Wait, wait, wait. Look at this.” He swipes a finger and scrolls to the same picture but with a laser photoshopped to beam from between Dongyoung’s parted lips. And then to another one with horribly pixelated spiders pouring out of his mouth. And another with a rainbow.

“What the hell, Youngho? Is this what you’ve been doing this whole time? You’ve been making shitty edited pictures of me.” Dongyoung squawks in his native language, knocking his shoulder into Johnny’s when the older man does nothing but laugh.

He laughs so hard that his grip on Dongyoung’s hands weakens, giving Dongyoung the ability to free his hands so he can properly punch Johnny in the arm. He laughs so hard that tears bud in his eyes, not even resisting when Dongyoung pushes him over. “Doe, did you not see? You’re practically modern art,” Johnny says in between his cackling and Dongyoung snaps.

Rising up, Dongyoung kicks a leg over Johnny’s torso and sits heavily on his lower stomach. He grabs one of the firm pillows propped up against the headboard and holds it down over the laughing man’s face.

One of Johnny’s hands reaches up to grip the corner of the pillow, the other falling to clutch Dongyoung’s waist.

“Hyung, what are you doing?”

Without letting up, Dongyoung glances over at Mark — sweet, adorable Mark with his glasses askew on his nose— and smiles charmingly. “Committing murder.”

Mark reaches up above his head in a stretch, arching his back and revealing a line of warm skin below the hem of his shirt. “Oh.” He sticks a hand up the bottom of his shirt to scratch his chest, pushing it up far enough that Dongyoung can see his navel. “Have we decided what we’re going for dinner?”

Johnny gets his own hands up Dongyoung’s shirt and he digs his fingers in the sides of his waist. Dongyoung squeaks out a laugh and that’s all it takes for him to lose his grip on the pillow and for Johnny to toss it aside.

“I’m guessing this a no for dinner.”

“Mark, I’m being _bullied_ ,” Dongyoung complains. “Please defend me.”

Mark sits up and adjusts his glasses. “Johnny, don’t bully Doyoung.”

Dongyoung turns to give Mark a blank stare. “Oh, wow, so powerful. My hero,” he deadpans.

Rolling out of bed, Mark walks over to Dongyoung and cups his chin. Dongyoung naturally allows his eyes to fall shut when Mark leans in and gives him a small peck on the lips.

“Thanks, I tried.”

Dongyoung watches him as he shuffles off to the bathroom. “All boys are useless.” Shaking his head, he looks down at Johnny who still looks _way_ too amused for comfort. “Wipe that smile off your face, asshole. You’re ugly.”

Johnny snorts, smirk tugging wider. “You’re still in my lap though.”

“Fuck off.” Dongyoung slides off the other boy who quickly sits up to make sure his Mac didn’t get caught in their rolling around.

Johnny closes the picture gallery, shaking his head. “Can’t believe you kiss your boyfriend with that mouth.”

Dongyoung rolls his eyes, puts a little space between them. “I know you wish it was you.”

Johnny looks at him out of the corner of his eye, still way too happy. “I know you wish it was me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a weird relationship but it'll make sense i swear


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not that anyone noticed i hadn’t updated in 10 years, but i went through a crisis because i couldn’t figure out if i wanted to tell the entire story in doyoung's pov or not. anyway, here we are again trying to inspire people to populate the doyoung/mark tag
> 
> i have been to canada a single time for a week and i was too poor to actually sightsee. i am sorry to canadians if i’m getting your country all wrong lmao i am doing my best

Mark wakes up to the smell of egg, cheese and sausage McGriddles and a part of him really hates that he knows that exact scent without even opening his eyes. He blames it on the two McDonald's within two blocks of his dorm and the company's heinous decision to extend their breakfast menu to all day without considering that some university students would rather spend a concerning amount of money each week on hashbrowns and Mickey D's brand frozen cardboard pancakes than use the dining hall passes from their thousand dollar university meal plan.

"...castle that I think would be cool to check out."

"I think Mark wanted to show me someplace but--"

"Monkey's Paw," Mark grumbles out, voice throaty and cracking, once the rest of his senses start loading in and clue him in to the conversation happening.

The weight against his chest shifts, a foot nudging at his own before slipping back to tangle between his legs. A hand covers his own and he turns his palm up to hold it gently.

"Good morning," Doyoung mumbles. "Did we wake you?"

Mark runs his tongue over his dried out lips and shakes his head, still trying to find the switch that'll get his eyes to open. "Nah." He dips his head and nuzzles his nose at the base of Dongyoung's neck. Comfy and warm, he sighs. "Talking about what to do today?"

"Mhm." Dongyoung hums, swiping his thumb in soft circles along the inside of Mark's own.

“I got breakfast,” Johnny says from somewhere.

“It’s _McDonald’s_ ,” Dongyoung says like it’s a personal offense to him to have the fast food chain and ‘breakfast’ in the same sentence.

Mark peels his eyes open enough to find a patch of Dongyoung’s skin he can press his lips to. “It’s good enough for me.”

He already knows what Dongyoung is going to say when the older man rolls onto his back to look into Mark’s eyes and Mark grins wide as he matches Dongyoung’s ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion’ word for word.

Dongyoung rolls his eyes. “You’re really not as cute as you think you are.”

If Mark didn’t just wake up, and if he wasn’t sure that Dongyoung hasn’t moved since he woke up either, he would have leaned in to kiss Dongyoung. Instead, he separates their hands and shoves Dongyoung back over to his side. Sitting up, he slides from underneath the blanket and sheet and crawls over Dongyoung to get off the bed.

Dongyoung pulling at the back of his shirt as he swings a leg off the bed almost sends Mark tumbling and he looks back with a pout that Dongyoung counters by sticking out his tongue.

Dongyoung thinks he’s tough but really he’s just a huge, clingy brat who thinks it’s uncool to express how much he likes people when others are around to see. Some people don’t get it, like Taeyong who always makes comments about how Dongyoung is emotionally constipated and isn’t a good fit for him, saying things like ‘you saw how toxic his relationship with Johnny was’ or whatever, but that’s because their love language doesn’t align well with Dongyoung’s.

“Don’t be mean. I just got up,” Mark whines as he finds stability on his feet.

Dongyoung sits up too, as if he has no reason to continue laying down now that Mark is no longer in bed, and runs his pretty fingers through his hair. “Don’t take too long in the bathroom. My mouth tastes disgusting,” he says.

“Just go with him,” Johnny says from where he’s sitting in the lone chair in the room by the window. He has a fork hanging out of his mouth and McDonald’s hotcakes sitting in his hand.

Not for lack of trying, but Mark admittedly doesn’t know Johnny as well as Dongyoung, has a little bit of trouble reading the words those dark eyes are whispering. If there’s two things they all know Johnny is bad at repressing on his face, it’s jealousy and fondness. Mark sees a bit of both as the other boy pulls the fork out of his mouth and stabs at the breakfast dessert, rolling it into an omelette shape that he then lifts into his mouth.

Dongyoung snorts. “Don’t suggest things you don’t actually want to happen, John.”

Shaking his head again, Mark crosses the room and enters the bathroom as they begin bickering again.

He picks up his toothbrush from where they’ve crowded the sink with their toiletries, squirts a glob of toothpaste on it, swipes it under a small stream of water and then shoves it into his mouth.

He just about finishes when the door swings open and he narrows his eyes into the mirror as Dongyoung holds up his glasses.

He blinks and whirls around to take them. “Oh, thanks,” he gargles with a mouth full of plastic and minty fluoride foam. Slipping the toothbrush out of this mouth, Mark leans over the basin and spits as he turns the water on again with the back of his hand. He’s quick to rinse his mouth out and when he straightens up again, Dongyoung is still standing in the doorway.

Mark pulls Dongyoung inside and laughs when the older man stumbles. Dongyoung glares at him and pulls the door closed.

“So, you chose to come in here in the end,” he says as he fits his glasses on his face.

Dongyoung sighs as he reaches for his own electric toothbrush and paste. “I don’t want to be out there with him,” he says as he prepares his toothbrush. “He’s annoying.”

“So are you,” Mark replies, chuckling when Dongyoung pinches his upper arm.

“Shut up. As if you’re an angel.”

“I’m more tolerable than the two of you.”

Mark had planned to use the toilet but Dongyoung leans his head on his shoulder as he turns on his toothbrush and begins scrubbing so Mark stays there by the sink. He wraps a hand around Dongyoung’s waist and slips a hand under his shirt, letting it rest on warm skin with no intent to wander.

As he ignores the flashing warning signs his bladder is signaling, Mark watches the way Dongyoung’s eyes flutter as he stares blankly at their reflection. Dongyoung must have woken up not too much earlier than Mark, probably stirred out of sleep by Johnny coming back with food, because any other time Dongyoung would have shoved Mark out of his way without a care otherwise, knowing he mostly likely wouldn’t wake up.

“How’d you sleep?” Mark asks.

It takes a moment for Dongyoung to slide his eyes over to Mark’s in the mirror, but he frowns when he does, grunting a sound around the buzz of his toothbrush.

He doesn’t get an answer until Dongyoung is finished, toothbrush capped and pushed back in the corner where the sink meets the wall, awkwardly behind the cups left by the hotel because there really isn’t any space for all of their stuff.

“Fine,” Dongyoung says as he turns. He begins carding his hands through Mark’s hair, delicately combing through the strands in an effort to get them to lay down. “I thought I’d appreciate you not stealing the blankets for once but I forgot you’re a furnace. I never wanted to know what hell feels like but I came pretty fucking close last night.”

Chuckling, Mark rubs at Dongyoung’s side with his thumb. “Sorry. Maybe my subconscious will remember to steal them tonight.”

Dragging his hands down the sides of Mark’s face, Dongyoung cups his cheeks. “Or maybe I’ll just sleep with Johnny tonight.”

Mark raises an eyebrow as he lets his head be tipped back. “Are you teasing me or telling me what you really want?” He hardly gets the last word out before Dongyoung’s mouth is on his, lips soft and tasting of mint.

It’s lazy and sweet and perfect but unfortunately Mark’s bladder gets tired of waiting after a few short moments. “Doe, wait, sorry. I have to use the bathroom,” Mark mumbles against Dongyoung’s mouth, drawing back.

Rolling his eyes fondly, Dongyoung leans into peck his lips one more time. “Hurry up. If Johnny wants to eat your McGriddle, I’m not going to stop him.”

“You should? I’m your boyfriend?” Mark pouts like that particular statement holds any weight in this situation. They both know it doesn’t.

“Mhm,” is all Dongyoung replies with as he leaves the bathroom, politely closing the door after him.

They decide to start their day with a trip to CN Tower after being unable to choose between it and Casa Loma and pulling up the trusty Google heads or tails widget to make the decision for them.

Johnny makes sarcastic comments the entire way to the car, stops during the ride as he focuses on following the directions on Mark’s phone, and continues once they park in a garage about how they could see the Tower any time since it’s not too far from their hotel and it’s best to go out far and work their way back in over the course of the day. Mark gets what he means, but he’s a simple man and heads or tails is divine intervention he will not question. Dongyoung, being himself, opposed Johnny on principle, and it was three against one in the end.

“I mean...you could always come back again,” Mark says after they’ve bought their tickets and are standing in line waiting to be allowed into the elevator up.

Dongyoung snorts but doesn’t point out Mark’s wording, nose in a brochure like the basic tourist who collects ticket stubs and pamphlets like he is.

Johnny throws Mark a look and the youngest man blinks blankly.

When he first had the idea to visit his home country for spring break late in January, it was with a definite goal in mind. Mark didn’t care much about seeing a city he spent half of his childhood in then and he still doesn’t care now. What he wanted was to find a reason to spend time together off campus and Canada was the only place he could think of that would entice them both — Johnny because he likes to travel and has never been and Dongyoung because he’s secretly sentimental enough to be interested in Mark’s home turf even if he’s never show it.

No one in their right mind would want to spend five hours in a car with Johnny and Dongyoung with no place to escape to and Mark is no different no matter how much he likes them. (Mark also kind of hates Toronto but that’s another thing entirely.) He told Dongyoung that he needed Johnny to drive back when he proposed the idea, and honestly he expected Dongyoung to call him out on how they could have flown.

“What?” Johnny asks.

The employee starts telling them about the Tower as the elevator doors open and she ushers them and the rest of the small crowd inside.

“He’s saying, you can pay double to come back tonight and give us the privacy you are stealing away from us by breathing,” Dongyoung says out of the side of his mouth as they board.

“I’m _saying_ ,” Mark sighs, “that you don’t have to miss out on the view you want just because we decided to come early.”

Dongyoung tends to push Johnny’s buttons directly, digs his fingers right in and curls them in a way that quickly agitates the older man’s nerves. Mark pushes them as well, for a similar reason, but not to either of their knowledge. Mark doesn’t like confrontation — and that’s not how he and Johnny work anyway — so he’s more subtle about it. He gives himself a wide enough berth, pokes at them as if with a stick long enough that Johnny doesn’t really notice what’s going on or who is doing it until he’s already bothered.

Is Mark fake? Yes, but he’s never claimed to be anything different.

Mark doesn’t feel much of anything when they finally make it to observation deck. He’s not fond of heights but he’s been up here enough times for it not to bother him. They find a spot at the window that isn’t crowded and lean against the railing as they look out to the city. Thankfully it’s a nice day, the sky mostly clear of clouds.

“All cities look the same,” Dongyoung says even as he holds up his phone to take pictures.

Mark laughs, tapping his fingers along the railing. He looks out too, remembering past visits with his elementary school before his family moved to the other side of the country. He should probably call his mom and see how she and his dad are doing now that he’s thinking about it.

“Absolutely not.”

Raising an eyebrow, Mark turns over his shoulder to see Johnny with a hand on Dongyoung’s wrist, dragging him somewhere else. He looks ahead of their direction, smiling to himself when he notices the glass floor up ahead.

Pushing off the railing, Mark shoves his hands in his pockets and follows behind them.

“John Suh,” Dongyoung says in a warning tone, unable to do anything else but complain and be pulled along. “I will scream.”

“Go ahead, you big baby.” Johnny smirks down at him.

Dongyoung’s glare is fiery, but he can’t send someone to hell with his gaze if they already belong there. So Dongyoung redirects his attention, sending the annoyed look Mark’s way.

“I wouldn’t be in this situation if we ditched him like you promised me.”

Mark sends him a smile and a quick air kiss that only makes Dongyoung’s scowl deepen.

Dongyoung reaches out, searching for his hand, and Mark speeds up to catch those slender fingers between his own. He doesn’t let go as Johnny finally gets him onto the small section of glass floor and he looks a little silly holding the both of their hands as he tries to squeeze himself onto one glass panel, refusing to look down, but Mark finds everything he does adorable.

“Doie, it’s okay,” he says, swinging their hands back and forth. “You know I don’t like heights either and this is nothing. Remember you’re standing on the floor.”

On Dongyoung’s other side, Johnny laughs. “Just look, chicken. It’s not scary.”

Dongyoung sucks his teeth. “This good cop-bad cop routine is not going to work on me. I’m not stupid.”

“That’s debatable.”

Dongyoung rolls his eyes and looks at Johnny. “Okay, now who is getting on whose nerves? I’m standing on it, right? So, let’s move.”

Mark slides in front of Dongyoung. He knows Dongyoung isn’t fond of public displays of affection and he understands that completely, but he risks the scolding to lift their connected hands to his mouth and kiss lightly at Dongyoung’s knuckles. “Trust us. Wouldn’t you like a picture of the view from here just to say you did it?”

A delicate blush fills Dongyoung’s cheeks. “No, not really.”

Johnny glances at Mark and nods his head for him to move.

Mark steps aside and watches as Johnny takes his place in front of Dongyoung. He raises an eyebrow when Johnny kneels down and delicately covers Dongyoung’s free hand with both of his, catching onto his plan quickly.

“Dongyoung Kim, I...”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mark sees the people closest to them looking on, stopping to gather at a distance. He turns his head and meets eyes with a women who is starting to smile happily and subtly shakes his head, motioning behind his back for her and everyone else to ignore them. The last thing he needs is for there to be videos on the internet of the inevitable end to this.

Dongyoung snaps his gaze down to Johnny’s smiling face, eyes wide and edging on terrified. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Mark shoots a quick prayer up to heaven.

“I’m...” Johnny releases Dongyoung’s hands and scoots back on his knees. “Getting you to face your fears.”

Dongyoung looks straight down through the glass floor, then at Johnny who is biting back a laugh, and Mark barely gets an arm around Dongyoung’s waist fast enough to tug him back as the native Korean tries to take a swing at Johnny.

Cackling, Johnny rolls onto his feet. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up that I’d confess my undying love for you.”

“I cannot stand you,” Dongyoung hisses.

Johnny winks. “The feeling is mutual.”

Shaking his head, Mark wonders if he can really get what he wants by the end of the week.

They spend some time at Casa Loma after that, and it’s absolutely gorgeous, but by the time they leave they’ve all come to the same unspoken opinion that they could and should have spent that time literally anywhere else. They then spend some more time unable to decide where to pick up a late lunch until Johnny decides to park in a garage so they can walk around and figure out a place. That’s how they end up in a Mexican restaurant, tucked in at a table in the back corner.

“I’m going to run to the bathroom,” Dongyoung says, sliding out of his seat. He sends a glance to both of them. “If the waiter comes back before I do, order me a fish taco.”

Mark and Johnny both make sounds of understanding and Dongyoung thanks them before he walks away from the table. Still deciding on what to get, Mark props up an arm on the table and sits his chin in his palm as he scans over the menu.

“Hey, Mark.”

Glancing up, Mark meets eyes with Johnny who is also leaning on the table, arms crossed. “Yeah?”

“Why do you like him?”

Licking over his lips, Mark stares at the other man.

Johnny has asked this question before. Not a lot, but enough times for Mark to recognize that he has heard it before in a couple different ways. Usually, Mark will give a genuine, but generic answer, but this time he changes his mind.

Still cupping his chin, Mark shrugs his other shoulder. “Why do you pretend like you don’t?”

The thing is:

Mark became interested in Dongyoung at a potluck for the Korean-American Student Association. He met Taeyong in a dance club he joined shortly after transferring and Taeyong dragged him along to Baekhyun’s apartment with kimchi fried rice that Taeyong made and three packs of double stuffed Oreos that Mark bought on the way there. Dongyoung was already there, commandering the kitchen because apparently he couldn't be bothered with cooking at his own apartment when Baekhyun had a fully functional kitchen. He was abrasive, with a knife in hand and an even sharper tongue, but when Taeyong introduced Mark, Dongyoung’s smile was so soft Mark thought his lips might feel like cashmere.

He met Johnny half an hour later when he arrived with Yoonoh and their questionable contributions of coleslaw and orange soda, and even from the first meeting, Mark could tell that no matter how much Dongyoung and Johnny seemed to dislike each other, there was an unbreakable connection between them.

Mark realized he was growing a crush on Dongyoung during late night study sessions cramming for fall semester midterms, the two of them coming across each other in the library one evening and deciding to make it a thing. He shared one side of his earphones because Dongyoung liked his studying playlist but claimed to not use Spotify (when he did); often broke out of his crazed studying tunnel vision to coffee and pastries from the coffee counter in the library and Dongyoung’s narrowed eyes as he reminded Mark to take breaks; would always wait for Dongyoung finish studying to walk back the ten minutes toward their respective housing until their directions diverged and they had to split with soft goodbyes.

Dongyoung had made up with Johnny by then, and there were nights at the library where Mark would third-wheel and watch Dongyoung lean his head on Johnny’s shoulder or watch them share small kisses when they thought he was too engrossed in work. Mark once had the quick thought to ask Johnny what Dongyoung’s mouth felt like when he was drowsy and lazy, when the sharp tongue is pliant and round, but pushed it to the very back of his mind before he could blurt it out.

Mark admitted he had fallen for Dongyoung on a random Thursday in the middle of October. Nothing special really happened. Mark walked into the student services building where most of the various organizations meet and saw Dongyoung getting his ear talked off by the person running a sign up table for the annual Humans vs Zombies game, mouth perked in an annoyed pout that was going unnoticed. He was wearing the blue sweater that he's obsessed with, the sleeves pulled down and hiding his clutched fists. He glanced away from the person who had him trapped and didn't even notice Mark on the other side of the room, but something just clicked then - - an all-encompassing understanding of 'dude...you really like him' that made Mark's heart squeeze so tight the feeling was choking enough for him to think something was genuinely wrong.

Dongyoung and Johnny had broken up a few weeks later.

Mark found the answer to his question of what it was like to kiss Dongyoung when he was sleepy another week after that in the broken couple's shared apartment. Johnny wasn't physically there then, but where Dongyoung is concerned, Johnny is always there even when he's not.

And Mark has never been bothered by that.

He gets it.

He's dating Dongyoung who is undisputedly in love with Johnny and he wouldn't have Dongyoung any other way.

(He would. He _really_ would. But that's all on Johnny.)


End file.
